Crafty Catch Up – Spice of Life CAL and a spot of dress making

05/10/2015

I’m still struggling a bit with this new rhythm that my week day life needs to fall into. It doesn’t seem to be coming naturally at all, but I’m hopeful that a fit of being organised this Monday is starting to send things more in the right direction.

I’m squeezing in crafty moments whenever I can, but again more organisation is needed to maximise these better. There have been a couple of busy weeks here with one things and another socially so hopefully now things are getting quieter more evenings with a crochet hook or a needle and thread can take place – after all what else were chilly autumn evenings made for?

My Attic 24 ripple blanket has taken a back seat whilst I’ve been concentrating on the Black Sheep Wools Spice of Life Crochet Along. I am completely in love with this pattern from Sandra Paul at Cherry Heart, and judging by the responses that I’m getting when I post photos on Instagram it seems that everyone else is too!

Today marks the end of week three of the CAL and I just have a couple more rows to complete to be ready for the next part coming to tomorrow morning. I’m really proud to find that I’ve still got the right number of stitches in each row (a small miracle I can tell you) and I’m also really excited about all the new stitches that I’ve learnt to do. Overall, all you need (so far!) to do this CAL are UK doubles and trebles and a few chains. Not that difficult at all, but the results are amazing.

One of the best things for me about this CAL (apart from the online community which I spoke about last time and continues to grow and be epic!) is how brilliantly clear the instructions from Sandra are. Each week we get a set of “normal” instructions, but then these are supplemented by some detailed ones including excellent photographs showing you exactly what to do and how each stitch should look. They really are brilliant and so so helpful when you’re not sure about some thing.

Now that I’ve gone on to the more complicated bits like shells and stacked grannies I’m noticing that my tension isn’t as great as it should be and I’ll be popping in to the Facebook group later to ask about whether I should change hook size the next time I do sections like this to get it better. Overall though I’m really pleased with how it’s looking and also wondering what the next section is going to be like. The colour palate from using the Rico DK is gorgeous and I’m also loving how it feels to work with.

Since I last blogged though there has been a bit more crafty activity chez C in the form of a sewing weekend with my mum. She came to stay whilst Mr C disappeared off to a stag do and we spent every moment whilst the kids were either at school or asleep with my sewing machine out making a skirt that I’ve been planning for ages.

It was back in late June / early July that I bought this pattern via eBay and the fabric to make this skirt and I’m pleased to say that it’s very almost finished. I don’t think I’ve made anything for myself since I was doing sewing lessons at school and so it was actually a bit of a steep learning curve so I was mighty pleased to have my mum next to me to help explain some of the details of the pattern.

I’m delighted with how it’s looking so far and all that I need to do is attach a hook and eye and sort the hem then it will be ready to wear. Just as soon as I’m all caught up with the CAL ahead of schedule I’ll get those done and hopefully decide what to sew next!